Overwhelmed by household chores! Ideas please!

[CambridgeCats]

Mum to young school-aged DC. Work for myself from home. DH works long hours and next to useless on cooking and cleaning (I know, that’s another thread).

For now, I would appreciate understanding how others do it (if their husbands also contribute little or if they’re single). For example, should I have specific tasks each day plus stuff I do everyday? Specific rooms or cleaning tidying tasks?

I seem to have got into a rut where I’m always catching up and the house is never tidy. As soon as I manage to tidy one area, another area is untidy. Laundry is always on a backlog.

Whats the system in your home for laundry? Do you have separate baskets for each person, or each room, and do you have set days for specific things eg underwear, towels, bed linen, or do you just chuck a load in whenever. And when do you put it all away?

this all sounds like basic stuff but I’ve let it get on top of me and need a reset. (Even if I was not living with DH I still feel I’d have this issue albeit with slightly less laundry!) talk to me like I’m an alien just landed here. How do I organise cleaning and tidying for a family home?

I appreciate he's not into cooking and cleaning (who is really into cleaning though...) but it's sort of not optional is it!? What if he lived alone. My dh is not a cleaner but pulls weight in other areas (washing, bins, cooking). I'd start by writing down a list of daily (washing on, dishwasher start/empty, washing put for the drier, wipe down of kitchen, making beds, light tidy of key areas, cook dinner, rubbish out) and weekly (big shop, hoover, bathrooms, putting washing away, meal plan, change beds rtc) - whatever you feel meets your standard and then work out between you and he and the kids if appropriate (ours put milk bottles out, feed pets, put their washing out and make their beds aged 7 and 10). I bet the real issue here is that unlike a single parent, you have a random man's mess, food, washing and dishes to sort out and he's a net drain in terms of tasks/energy/activity on domestic stuff. It's unreasonable to work and also run a house with no help, it doesn't really work unless it's all you do. Once tasks are split, you will have to trust/let others own it, which may mean its not always to your standard (our bins are always over flowing, it's not my job, I let it be).
With washing, separate white-whites and do once a week, but otherwise just bung a load on every morning and you'll be on top, even a busy family don't wear more than 1 load of washing a day. Meal planning really helps me, I know what's for dinner, dh knows what's for dinner, the ingredients are in the fridge so whoever is cooking just grabs and gets on with it, no panic or inventing random stuff! I also find an evening reset (tidy, wipe down, sofa cushions plumped, throws folded) helps me feel better about coming down the next morning (whoever does kids bedtime, the other person does the evening reset and then we are both done at the same time and can chill with a wine or tea together).

Thank you for these! Swapping the evening reset won’t work for us because my husband doesn’t get home till around 9-10pm during the week. He’s basically only there in the mornings and at weekends. Mornings he’s doing dishwasher and bins as needed. Weekends he’s pretty rubbish and wants to relax- don’t we all!

Are you able to get a cleaner which sounds a good idea for you and your family ?

Tidy and clean are related but not the same. We aim for mostly-tidy-by-bedtime every day.

Meal prep for weekday dinners is done in the morning before school run, so minimal fuss in the kitchen at dinner. Then I don’t sit down to eat until the kitchen is basically clean and pans put to soak which minimises clean up afterwards.

Dh does a lot - over time we have naturally fallen into having “our jobs” to do.

I aim to get on top of big jobs like pulling out sofas and furniture, clean oven, defrost freezer before spring so that I have time to do garden chores when the weather improves.

Your DH will quickly figure out how to do laundry when you stop washing his clothes! I’m being serious, you are his wife and not the maid. It’s not your responsibility to make sure he has clean pants.

Well he can "relax" by taking all the children out on a Saturday irrespective of the weather so you can blitz the place if he doesn't want to pull his weight on that front. He can sort it, sort lunch for them and get out of your hair.

Or, family CambridgeCats can blitz the house together on a Saturday morning which is how I grew up. Everyone gets their own tasks daily/weekly/monthly and once you've done your bit, the day is your own and parents only hassle whoever has defaulted that week rather than being stressed and cross at everyone [which was better as a teen - I used to do all my cleaning on a Friday night so I could do my hobby all day Saturday.]

We both work FT and have a fairly clear division of labour. DH does all the food shopping, planning and most of the cooking.
We have a cleaner once a week.
In the meantime I am keeping on top of all the laundry, ironing and endless build up of clutter the kids and DH can't be arsed to put away. I'm also the post dinner cleaner upper and he usually does the saucepans.
We share the mental and actual load of random ad hoc stuff that needs doing like sorting returns, repairs etc.
I do all the school related admin.
Dog walking and other animal related activities and appointments is mostly me.

You need to get on top of everything first before you can keep on top of it.

De clutter every room.
Clean every room thoroughly.

Then;

I have a laundry basket upstairs and one in the utility, I do separate laundry, put a wash on first thing, never allow the clean clothes pile to get too big, put away what you can daily and let the ironing pile up but never have an ironing pile that will take more than 30 minutes.
Have a cleaning routine that’s 30 minutes a day to tidy around generally and keep on top of the kitchen and bathrooms.
Have a weekly clean upstairs one day and downstairs another.
Meal planning saves a lot of time and money, you can have more convenient food for busier days and cook from scratch on others, I do double scratch meals and freeze.
I spend 30 minutes a week on admin and finances.
If I listen to a podcast when cleaning/ironing it never seems to much of a chore.
My husband is pretty useless but I get him to strip down sofas and chairs & hoover them, he also vacuums the stairs and empties the bins.

Good luck.

Washing machine is on every day. I put a load in just before bed on a delayed timer and put it in the dryer whilst my DD is eating breakfast next morning. When I get home washing gets thrown on the bed. I never allow myself to move it. It has to be put away before bedtime. Daughter puts clothes away during bedtime routine (she's 6).

I split washing into whites, darks, pastels and brights. I only do this because my daughter's uniform is bright red and the colours run. Because it's a daily load it works out about right.

Bath towels go in with other clothes. Kitchen towels and cloths go in a separate wash at the weekend.

We have a robot hoover which is very handy as he will gobble up anything in his way, so it has slowly trained us all to keep stuff off the floor.

I will never allow myself to relax on the sofa after dinner until the kitchen is clean and the dishwasher is going. If I sit on the sofa that's it. I have to make the most of my remaining energy whilst on my feet!

Cleaning wise I have set days for certain rooms. Kitchen on a Monday, bathrooms on a Tuesday, bedrooms on a Friday. Everything else gets done on a weekend. I've found since doing this the house has gradually got cleaner and the weekly cleans need less, if that makes sense. It helps to set a timer and only clean in that time also, e.g. 30 mins.
I used to follow The Organised Mum Method and have sort of developed my own version over the years that suits my schedule and my house.

When I come down from DC bedtime I’m usually spent. (About 8.30-9pm.) I want to prioritise sleep and try to be in bed by 10. Up at 6.

Non negotiables and endless drudge but done daily, they keep the load down:
Laundry: unload the wet, fold and out away the dry, wash the dirty. Rinse and epeat so it never mounts up.
Bogs and bathrooms - wipe over daily.
Make beds daily and hang up anything clean and worn yesterday
Wipe down the kitchen after every use
Dishwasher - load, unload, sort the recycling
Keep the cupboaeds/drawers tidy.
Beds (we had three and I did the linens weekly on rotation)
Towels - everyone has their own and washed weekly.
Pick it up and put it away.

When you are ready to sit down, do a job for 20 minutes: hoover a room, mop a floor, dust, wipe down some paintwork.

The children had to tidy their toys before bed and before their story.

It's mindnumbingly tedious.

Things changed for me when I kept to a weekly schedule instead of always doing crisis cleans.

TOMM is good, especially guided cleans.

I like the idea from the pp
of separating out the floors as a task! We do the same and my YA (but also could be dh on Saturday) tackle the floors. It’s a good specific task to delegate. We shouldn’t have to but other members of the family step up better if given responsibility for certain very specific tasks.

Bathrooms: cleaning bathrooms is my most loathed task so I get up early and clean one element for 15 mins every morning, before I get ready myself, be it loo, sink, bath, or surfaces, or tidying. So it never gets awful.

One laundry load a day. Fold and put away next day. Easier if you don’t mix loads and stick to each person’s

My teens did their on laundry from 12 onwards. Started off a but patchy but they are good at it now.